You’ve heard people complain about getting beer off the shelf of their favorite local shop before, only to get home without checking the date to find out that it’s been sitting there for a little too long. If freshness is important to you, you won’t be able to do much complaining with Fifty West’s latest release event. The brewery is releasing their Million Dollar Road Hazy IPA, and they’re doing it in typical Fifty West fashion, by doing things differently than you’ve ever seen before.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, first we should talk about the beer itself.

Fifty West’s Million Dollar Road

This beer first hit the Fifty West taplines in November of 2017, and I fell in love with my first taste. I don’t think that this version is identical to the one that was tapped last winter, but the description from the brewery makes me think that I have quite a bit to look forward to with this batch. Here’s what they say about it:

This Hazy IPA has the aromatics of an island smoothie with huge notes of mango, banana, and orange juice. The juiciness is magnified by the low bitterness and smooth, creamy, oat heavy malt profile.

The beer is named after a narrow segment of road off of Route 50 in Silverton Colorado. This little segment of road runs so close to the edge of a cliff that during the winter the locals are known to say that you couldn’t pay them a million dollars to drive on it.

About The Release

I made a big deal to talk about freshness, and I can explain what that’s all about. Remember that Fifty West likes to innovate how they do their releases, and this one is no exception. They are going to fire up their canning line during the release, and literally pick four packs up off of the line to hand them out as you purchase them. It’s not just a fun gimmick, either. They’re using this opportunity to give you an in-depth look at the canning process, an experience that most people don’t get the chance to see.

Four packs will be available to purchase for $14.99, with limits being set the morning of the event. They do plan, however, to make sure that multiple four packs will be available per person, as they don’t anticipate that any of this will make its way out into distribution.

So, for now, what you need to do is mark your calendar for Saturday, May 19th at 11am. Actually, you might want to go ahead and mark it for 8am, which is when they’ll open up the line at the Fifty West Production Works for people to start lining up. If you’ve never been to a beer release before, you should know that waiting in line with fellow beer geeks is half of the fun. They’ll of course have the Roadside Grill fired up so that you’ve got something to eat while you’re waiting. This event should be a blast!